PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has approved Rs21.8 billion for strengthening school-level service delivery, improving learning environments, and addressing longstanding gaps in infrastructure and human resources at public sector schools.

These approvals form part of the government’s broader education reform agenda being implemented under the good governance roadmap, according to official documents available with Dawn.

“The major chunk of the approved funds worth Rs6.185 billion would be utilised through parent-teacher councils (PTCs) to support student retention, stabilise enrolment, and incentivise schools to attract and retain out-of-school children, particularly in vulnerable and under-served areas,” secretary elementary and secondary education Mohammad Khalid told Dawn.

The government has also approved a fundamental restructuring of the PTC grant regime in order to bring greater clarity, transparency, and accountability to school-level financing, he said. Under the approved framework, PTC grants have been reorganised into three clearly defined expenditure heads, namely classroom consumables, petty repairs, and a newly-introduced capitation grant linked to student enrolment, he added.

Secretary education says major chunk to be utilised to support student retention, stabilise enrolment

This restructuring is intended to directly connect financial allocations with functional units of service delivery, i.e. classrooms and students, while also strengthening monitoring through head-wise reporting.

Mr Khalid said that under the revised regime, the rate of classroom consumables has been enhanced from Rs6,000 to Rs13,000 per classroom, while the allocation for petty repairs has been increased from Rs7,000 to Rs16,000 per classroom. In addition, a capitation grant at the rate of Rs300 per student has also been introduced for the first time.

It is worth mentioning here that Rs3.073 billion have already been released towards PTC grants.

The official documents reveal that in order to ensure availability of school furniture across the province, the government has approved a comprehensive furniture provision plan based on an assessed requirement of 1.426 million furniture units, with an estimated total cost of Rs7.074 billion.

Against this requirement, Rs1 billion has already been released, while the remaining Rs6.074 billion will be arranged through a supplementary grant.

Alongside PTC reforms, the government has approved a set of targeted interventions under the good governance roadmap to address critical gaps in school infrastructure, teacher availability, and classroom congestion.

With regard to provision of missing basic facilities, it has endorsed utilisation of funds available in PTC accounts under conditional grants. An amount of Rs1.187 billion has been identified for this purpose and is to be utilised through re-appropriation committees constituted under the respective deputy commissioners.

These funds are to be used strictly for provision of essential facilities such as boundary walls, toilets, water and electricity.

To address acute teacher shortages, particularly at the primary level, the elementary and secondary education department will hire 10,074 primary teachers through PTCs.

These teachers are to be engaged on an interim basis at an honorarium of Rs25,000 per month, with the objective of ensuring minimum staffing norms and improving classroom functionality.

The total financial implication of this intervention stands Rs2.267 billion annually.

In this connection, the education department has planned to engage 6,317 teachers for summer zone from January 1, 2026 and 3,757 teachers for winter zone from March 1, 2026.

An amount of Rs1.166 billion has been authorised by the provincial cabinet to be released during the current financial year till June to cover five academic months in summer zone and four academic months in winter zone.

In addition, the government has approved construction of 1,000 additional classrooms through PTC funds and additional 1,000 classrooms from ADP, costing Rs2.035 billion each (total Rs4.070 billion) to address overcrowding and improve learning environments in high-enrolment schools.

The provincial government is also considering implementing education internship programme, providing for induction of 2,500 internees under the ADP scheme titled ‘innovative interventions in E&SE sector’.

The objective of the initiative is to provide classroom support and build future teaching capacity with respect to implementation of artificial intelligence integration in schools.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2025